Realignment may drastically change college landscape

Domino effectRumors of conference realignment abound, and schools await the first move that would trigger a changed landscape across college sports

BRENT ZWERNEMAN, College Station Bureau

Published 5:30 am, Monday, May 10, 2010

Photo: Smiley N. Pool, Chronicle

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Changes in the Big Ten could affect the Big 12 and the other major college conferences.

Changes in the Big Ten could affect the Big 12 and the other major college conferences.

Photo: Smiley N. Pool, Chronicle

Realignment may drastically change college landscape

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Judging from the apocalyptic chatter in the time to kill between spring football and real football, one might surmise the Big 12 is heaving its final breaths, with the mighty Big Ten primed to pillage the 14-year-old conference.

Au contraire, argue the Big 12 power brokers — who urge fortitude in fighting through the rumors, hearsay and off-record whispers of a most mesmerizing offseason.

“It's a great conference, it's been good to us and I hope it continues to be that,” Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds said. “What will happen with the conference — I don't know the answer to that right now, and I don't know that anybody else does. We have to wait and see how this plays out.”

What Dodds and others are waitingon, in an exercise of budding exasperation, is whether one or several of the league's schools splits for bigger paydays in other conferences. Reports have linked Missouri, for instance, with potential Big Ten expansion, and claim the Tigers would leap at an invite.

“It would be such a shame if any institution thought it had a better place to go,” Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe said.

Baylor athletic director Ian McCaw isn't buying the idea Missouri or Nebraska, for instance, will bolt for the Big Ten, despite the potential for earning roughly $10 million more annually in revenue, thanks to a sweeter conference television contract.

“The Big 12 has a very bright and stable future,” McCaw said. “We're on solid ground. I'll be surprised if the Big Ten (which has 11 members) expands beyond 12 schools. Fourteen and 16 teams are unwieldy from a scheduling standpoint.”

Size matters

Plus, McCaw added, the Big Ten likely doesn't want to spread its considerable annual payout — reportedly $22 million per school — over too many programs. The Big 12 reportedly pays from $7 million to $12 million per school.

“There are a lot of reasons why they won't go past 12,” McCaw said of the Big Ten, in downplaying the idea of a super conference of 16 or more teams. “And I think the Big Ten will take either Notre Dame or Connecticut (to make 12).”

Count Texas A&M athletic director Bill Byrne, too, as a Big 12 believer — and one who couldn't resist a dig at any wishful thinking.

“As long as we're wishing, I wish all of our schools were located in Hawaii,” he said, chuckling.

More seriously, Byrne said of hypothesizing about the Big 12's future: “There are all types of combinations that people can get into. My preference is to keep the Big 12 intact. We have a really good conference, and I like it. If (the dominoes) start falling we'll take care of Texas A&M, but it's pointless to speculate on that right now, when there's been no movement.

“I can't say it often enough — we want to stay right where we are. And the ‘Bigger 10' would love to have Notre Dame.”

The three area Big 12 athletic directors interviewed — Byrne, Dodds and McCaw — said the league needs a better television contract, more along the lines of the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference TV deals that net member schools millions more per year than the Big 12 dishes out. The Big 12's salvation on that front — and perhaps overall — might come in a proposed alliance with the Pacific-10 Conference.

Athletic directors from both leagues met last week in Phoenix to discuss the idea of joining forces for a new television contract, meaning they would net roughly a third of the nation's TV market.

“It's also 22 of the most prominent institutions west of the Mississippi River,” Beebe said.

The conferences, buoyed by the success of their recent basketball “Hardwood” series, would agree to play more games across the board in all sports. And the TV deal, which they would dive in together while remaining separate leagues, would offer the primary hook of the powerful alliance.

“We need to have all of our football games exposed in some platform,” Beebe said. “The old way of thinking that you have to keep some games off (the air) because they hurt the games that are on is no longer valid. With a joint network with the Pac-10 or with a traditional network, we're going to be demanding of having tremendous exposure and demanding of revenues that are more in line with the Big Ten and SEC.”

TV contracts vital

The Big 12 and Pac-10's deals with Fox Sports end in 2012, and negotiations for new contracts start in about a year. The conferences collide in the Holiday Bowl, and starting this year will do so in the Alamo Bowl.

“It's all conversation right now,” Dodds said of a projected Pac-10/Big 12 TV union. “There's nothing set in stone.”

Neither is the idea that whatever happens, UT and A&M are in this together. Would the state's two flagship schools, separated by 90 country miles, join different conferences? They grew up together in the old Southwest Conference and then joined the Big 12 in 1996, when the geographically confined SWC dissolved.

“It's always been that way,” Dodds said of UT and A&M competing in the same conference, “and I would assume in the future it will always be that way.”

“We need to play each other every year,” Byrne said. “Other than that, both schools need to do what's best for them.”

Finally, there's the common sense factor of why this state's Big 12 schools, including Texas Tech in West Texas, wouldn't be the ones to bolt for the Pac-10, Big Ten or even SEC, should there be a slight league shake-up (say, losing one of the schools on the outer boundaries):

Proximity important

“One of the things that's been unfortunate in this talk about realignment is the discussions center on money, with little or no discussion of the student-athletes' experience and welfare,” McCaw said. “Some of the scenarios presented have student-athletes traveling 1,500 or 2,000 miles during the week. That's an unrealistic burden. At the end of the day, a regional conference makes the most sense.

“We've got a fairly tight geographical boundary for the Big 12. That's one of the reasons why our conference is so strong.”

Following Arkansas' departure from the SWC in 1991, that antiquated league was restricted to the state of Texas, and with a then-lagging UT, lost much of its national identification. The Big 12 covers Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and Iowa — or, as Byrne sees it, what's just about right, labeling consistent travel to far-reaching destinations (despite his Hawaii daydreaming) as a “disadvantage for student-athletes.”

Dodds agreed.

“Our first concern is the student-athletes' welfare, and the amount of travel is part of that,” he said. “That is not something we would address only in passing.”

Still, is there some fire with all of the smoke swirling about league realignment?

Fourteen years ago this week, a softball sailed into the Oklahoma City sky —and into history as the luminous new league found its footing with its first tournament. Fourteen years later, despite the Big 12's successes and multiple national titles in the major sports, is the league, like that first fly ball in 1996, up in the air?

Keep fans in mind

Beebe, who has a rooting interest in the Big 12's survival, contends no way. But his reasoning makes sense as to why fans can expect the league to stick around for years to come, through all of the babble between football seasons.

“It all starts with the welfare of student-athletes,” Beebe said. “It doesn't serve them to get too far outside of a geographic region. We're not talking about multimillionaire professional athletes who only have their jobs to worry about.

“The next thing is fans. Their ability to travel to games would be severely tested if suddenly their teams were routinely playing games 2,000 miles away. People also want familiarity with the opposing school.

“We're going to really harm ourselves in college athletics if we start getting outside that realm.”